


Until Now Gives Way to Then

by swat117



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: (except for Tilda Swinton?), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Introspection, M/M, Soft Boys, love heals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swat117/pseuds/swat117
Summary: "The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained."David and Patrick help re-write each other's pasts while building their future together.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 64
Kudos: 277





	Until Now Gives Way to Then

When Patrick was five, his best friend moved away. He cried every day for two weeks. His mother was a picturesque comforting presence, holding him on her favorite porch rocking chair, bringing him snacks, cooing assurances, and encouraging his emotions. His father too, never shied away from young Patrick shuffling into the living room to lay down between his legs, perched on the ottoman, while he watched the Jays game. 

This is an early memory that sits fuzzy and unremembered in the back of his mind. If you were to ask Patrick to recall his parent's affection, he wouldn’t come up with this story. But where it counts - in the building and shaping of a man - it is a foundational column holding up his ability to comfort, to ask and receive care from others, with unapologetic freedom. 

Because of this, simple touch came easy to him - a platonic embrace or a hand on the shoulder to show he was listening. It felt comfortable even as he got older and friends called him handsy. He hugged his high school baseball teammates and teased their macho refusal until they acquiesced. Held hands with the kid neighbor who leaned on him for a few years there as a brother-type. Embraced, still embraces, his parents, proudly and without reason. 

From the very beginning, he hugged Rachel. He touched Rachel. That listening hand on her shoulder, a brush of hair off her face in the sun. When she leaned in to kiss him one summer when they were fourteen, of course he returned the gesture. He felt close and wanted closeness from her. There was no deception at the origin of their relationship. 

By the time they started having sex, almost two years after their first kiss, he was honestly ready and excited. This was a milestone, a type of intimacy even his teenage self was aware was next level. It was the closest he could physically be to another person - to someone he knew so well and loved so much. 

Their first time was fine, which seemed par for the course as teenage fumbling goes. It continued for years to be just fine for him, and she never complained so neither did he. Who doesn’t love an orgasm, and the secrets of a shared bed, and to make their partner melt and flex underneath? Beyond the climactic high, he lit up more in a moment snuggled on the couch watching a movie than mid-passion, felt closer to her when she held a hand on his knee as he drove her to work in the morning. 

Just not a big sex guy, he told himself and believed it.

-

David’s first sexual encounter was at seventeen, and he felt like a late bloomer. Away at a summer arts program in New York after his senior year of high school, he was reinvented. No one knew him here in the city. Yet. His confidence was at an all-time high, no longer dragged down by familiar, cruel faces. His wealth and his clothes and his travels held a currency they never had before, now that he was outside of his immediate circle of private school kids who were just like him.

He dove into the beds of his housemate (not the worst idea), her brother (a less good idea), and onto the office couch of his art criticism professor (solidly not a good idea, but also not his fault) in the span of two weeks. He ran around the city wild, sated, and desired. 

At the end of the program, there was a showcase for the student artists. It was the first and last time David ever showed his artwork in public. Their prompt was to pick an artist and make a series of influenced pieces. David chose Louise Bourgeois because her sculptures made his body twist when he looked at them. He felt the curl of his organs around his bones and thought that she must feel the way he does in his own skin. Grotesque, transforming, hidden, wide open. 

He was proud of what he built in response to her art - mixed media on canvas where he tried to lay bare and then bury in layer and new layer of plaster overtop. He was totally exposed if anyone was willing to scratch the surface film. 

His mother made it to the showing - a welcome surprise. He was so excited to see her and she seemed proud, which David would say inspired his later confidence to open a gallery. The approval from her, an artist, that he could be among them as well. They went for omakase in the East Village and talked mostly about her latest season on Sunrise Bay. He told her about losing his virginity. She gave a kind but pitying smirk and said, “It happens to the best of us.” 

Her plane back to California took off early the next morning, so they wrapped up dinner after two hours. He put her in a car with a hand on her arm to help her balance, a wave, and nothing more. 

After that summer it was easy to give away more of the same. He felt physically close to people and felt wanted and maybe lacked real intimacy but the time in between each new bedmate was short enough he honestly didn’t notice too frequently what he lacked. _It’s my twenties and I’m supposed to experiment,_ he thought. _I’m not ready for a real partner, not mature enough. It will happen when it’s meant to and I’ll enjoy the ride until then._

It was easy to believe that when everyone else seemed to agree. 

-

From his first kiss with David, Patrick begins to question the story he'd told himself about sex. And, on their first night alone at Stevie’s, he understands in seconds the depth of the lies he’d been up-keeping for a decade.

Surely there are limits to desire, but Patrick can literally - correct use of the word - not get enough of David’s mouth, of David in bed, of touching and being touched by David in a specifically sexual way. He hasn't lost the easiness or enjoyment of those casual touches he’d built his early understanding of intimacy on but, frankly, they do nothing to calm the heat of his wants. They come nowhere close to what he feels (what he _admits_ ) when David's skin is spread out beneath him. 

Where his past love life seemed to end with a fade to black after a few minutes of making out like a 90’s rom-com, now Patrick kisses David, and kisses him, and kisses him, and as he reaches past the elastic of his briefs the brightness turns up. 

He watches David, and watches himself enjoy sex and revel in it; he looks it straight in the eye. He is full of shame and doubt every day, for hiding, for not understanding for so long, but not shame in this. Inside David, or David in hand, or basking in a post-sex glow there is only blinding joy for his partner and his life now teaching him how to engage in love in this way.  It's so intoxicating that he worries about conflating love with sex, but then he thinks, no, this is different. It’s not love because of sex, it’s using sex as expression. He is a painter with a new set of brushes, suddenly aware of how to communicate in a new language. And David is so fluent, works so beautifully in this vocabulary. 

He mixes his metaphors one night when David starts speaking to him in actual French in bed: _Mon beau, mon biquet, mon désir._ Patrick is laughing, tasting the words, and deliriously happy. 

When he says _I love you_ for the first time, he anticipates the way David pulls back. It means more than he can express that David returns in the afternoon and breathes out the same words, then begins to drop them into conversation daily after that. He can see how hard it is for David sometimes, to share this type of intimacy that for Patrick comes naturally. He thinks that giving David a space to express love without doubt is as meaningful an accomplishment as earning the love itself is.

He does wonder, and later that same day asks, when the last time someone else said I love you to David was. For Patrick, the answer is that about 20 minutes before he told David, he heard it from his mother. David's face gives away that he has to think too hard to find his answer. Patrick spares him having to give the real date by leaning in for a kiss. He hopes it comes across with that touch of lips how seriously and deeply he loves. That from now on David’s answer will be a quick and easy, “earlier today when Patrick told me.”

-

When he starts dating Patrick, the growth-averse mantras David has been repeating to himself seem to be printed on transparencies, and reading between the lines of his history is like looking through a just-cleaned window. So obvious now.

It scares him how much confidence Patrick gives him and how firmly he now believes he was kidding himself for all those years of casual sex. Of course he deserves love. Deserves commitment. Deserves a partner beyond the physical. 

He finds excuses to be domestic: to sit around at the store and trade glances from across the room, to go for drives and walks where they chastely hold hands. His plans for middle school crush realness are only thwarted by Patrick’s seemingly insatiable desire for his body.  It’s not a challenge, obviously, for David to have sex with him. Years and years of an unhealthy relationship with the act don’t land him a penchant for celibacy, but with an awareness of how different being in bed with Patrick is to what has come before. 

For one, it’s exciting to have a leg up on Patrick, a rare occurrence given his boyfriend's constant, unfailing proficiencies. The first time he has Patrick in his mouth, he presses Patrick's hips into the mattress and sucks him through choked off exclamations of, _This is - I've never - you're so -._ He almost wants to stop his work and shout “Aha! Finally! Something I’m better at than you!” before realizing this interruption would probably render the conclusion invalid. So he continues to show Patrick the oral of his life. Afterwards, Patrick fumbles enthusiastically around a handjob for David that is filled with sweetness and stops and starts as Patrick gains his own confidence and gathers details. David comes, giddy, but it’s not the best sex of his life. 

Their resulting cuddle, however, is so sincere and unfussy that it makes David cry. He feels, in Patrick’s arm, the sutures being stitched into his past and thinks both _it’s too soon_ and _finally._

Through David’s middle of the night musings, Patrick is peacefully asleep. It seems to have cost him nothing to pull David close under the covers, to ask if he was comfortable, then sleepily kiss the back of his neck and nuzzle closer before drifting off. 

David is stunned by this first night in bed together and stunned for the next year and a half by how easily Patrick gives himself away to David. How unapologetically he loves and how secure in the relationship he seems. 

David’s confidence slips a few times - letting Alexis get in his head about that stupid quiz, and worrying that Patrick might like Ken more instead of him. Following those weak moments, he grabs ahold of Patrick and just hugs. He hopes that it’s clear to Patrick that held in his arms he can feel Patrick’s love, that he is sorry for doubting its security. That the fear is a learned behavior from his past and not a real response to their relationship. 

When he finds out that Patrick has been hiding them from his parents (Patrick's kind parents who call the store and chat with David about his lunch plans, the latest episode of The Good Fight, and share in jokes about Patrick’s _I’m concentrating_ face) the contradiction is a slap in the face. Patrick's love for him is so expansive, so out there, he almost can't believe it's true. He tries for one second to feel betrayed by this withholding but obviously crumbles under the honest pain in Patrick’s eyes as he explains why. The betrayal turns instantly into pure compassion. The full-on brawl raging inside Patrick has nothing on the petty slap David felt. 

Later that night, after David has been thanked with a long slow dance under the disco ball, he works to make Patrick proud of their queer love. He strips and enjoys Patrick's gaze on his body. He makes sure to say out loud _I love the way you look at me,_ _you look right in my arms,_ and _you deserve this_. He hooks his ankles around Patrick’s back like a second pair of grasping arms and lets Patrick fuck him and kiss him and smiles and tells Patrick again that he deserves this. Reveling in Patrick’s authentic desire, and knowing the rest that comes with it outside of this room, is the best sex of his life.

-

Commitments, for Patrick, make sense. He knows relationships evolve and change and nothing you promise can be forever except the promise to keep trying and keep communicating. It is this belief that makes proposing to David the easiest decision of his life and also a relatively insignificant one. Insignificant because he made that commitment to David two years ago, really. He sees now that committing to his own truth, leaving Rachel, and moving to Schitt's Creek was the inciting event of his happiness.  He may not have realized, not been ready to admit it, but he made the choice soon after meeting David for the first time. Patrick sees now that telling his parents about them was the last step in admitting the commitment to himself. Without this shadow following him around, he is in the open sun. Nowhere to hide his love, and no reason to. 

He orders the rings the day after he comes out because he has a suspicion that David doesn't quite understand the commitment. For David, it’s not going to feel insignificant to hear that Patrick’s existence is so entangled in his. He'll need to hear it said plainly, have it come with something tangible he can wear around to remind himself and others that Patrick is choosing him. 

He stops to wonder what a proposal from David might look like and thinks he never wants to see the day because he should be the one to go out on this ledge. Patrick should always be the first to admit the strength of his feeling. 

So many people before him have asked David to do all the work to prove his love. Asked him to admit more than he was willing, just to let him down and lord it over him. Patrick thinks back to the day after their first kiss when his crush on David was so uncomplicated and new. _Regrets? David had asked, wincing._ He'd clearly spent so much time assuming that the universe was conspiring against him and Patrick's heart was sore with the thought. On that second day, he set his mission course for pronoia. 

He expects David will say yes to the proposal but he doesn’t expect David to ask him if he’s sure about it. He thought by now at least David would know how few regrets he has left. He really hopes this puts the lid on David ever asking him that again. 

During the months leading up to the wedding, he watches David twist at the gold bands. Traces the light from the sun as it bounces off the metal to sparkle in the corner of David's eyes. 

_The universe is conspiring for you, David Rose,_ he sends out into the world. 

-

When the opportunity to move back to New York presents itself, David is flooded with nostalgia. He misses the stretch of 10th Street between 7th Avenue and the Hudson River, the Strand, dinners at L’Artusi. These are all material wants and David knows that's not the same as people. He also knows that the people associated with these memories are not good. But he still wants. 

He tells Patrick about the plans, excited and brimming with possibility. He feels the apprehension of his husband radiating from every appendage. But he still wants.

That night, Patrick is pliable and a bit distant in bed, but enthusiastic as ever. David wastes no time getting to the main event, knowing he can offer this to his husband if not a compromise about where they'll live. Patrick moves in and out of him - so caring, kissing up and down David's neck, praising him. The moment turns. He suddenly feels so foreign, so out of body, that he asks to stop.  Patrick pulls out, looking worried and loving. David (this must be what growth feels like) catches the feeling for what it is - the most shame he’s felt in years. He was using sex to get his way, to appease Patrick. 

He hardly sleeps that night even though Patrick does everything right afterwards - doesn’t judge him for a second for ending it or push him to explain. David can judge himself well enough, thank you. Patrick gets David a glass of water, a towel, and runs a nervous but comforting hand up and down his arm until slowing as rest falls over him. David is incredibly comforted by Patrick, and incredibly disappointed in himself.

The morning is hazy. He walks to the motel for breakfast with his family even though Patrick gives him the car keys. He’s nervous when he goes in to see Stevie and more nervous when he leaves. _A house?_

He spends the walk back to the apartment trying to figure out how to apologize for last night, wonders if Patrick even picked up that David was manipulating him with each touch, and prays that if Patrick finds out the whole truth it won't feel like a betrayal. 

Inside, Patrick says, “I always thought you didn’t like New York,” like it’s that simple. And “I’m excited to be with you,” like that was even simpler.

David never gets out his apology because he’s left with a whole new bag of emotions to deal with. 

“Well. I’ll give you some privacy. To write those vows,” he uses as an excuse to make an exit. 

“David, hey,” Patrick says and moves to sit next to him on the bed. He places one hand on David’s thigh and uses the other to turn David’s head to look him in the eyes. “It’s all just a conversation. You share what you want with me. I listen. I share what I want with you. You listen. We talk about it. I’ve made compromises in the past in relationships that I know I shouldn’t have made. This - our marriage - it’s not those relationships. Take me at my word.”

David tries to, but his head is buzzing, busy. He forms a close-mouthed smile and knows it doesn't reach his eyes. He sees Patrick track that too. Patrick knows him so well. 

His face, his eyes, are so close to David that it feels like he’s seeing himself clearly reflected in Patrick’s eyes. He allows himself a moment to live up to what his partner sees, to muster the passion and bravery and goodness that Patrick attributes to him. It’s so heavy he can only stand it for one breath. 

“Yeah,” he finally says and gives a dry peck to Patrick’s lips. “I love you. I’ll see you later."

He cries on the hood of Stevie’s car, looking at his future. In making the decision to stay he thinks he sees a bit more of what Patrick sees in him.

He tells his parents and Alexis over pizza. His mother is usually so quick to question his choices, to guide him towards her modus operandi. Tonight she only pokes back once and lets him have his decision, a ringing endorsement by her standards. 

He says goodnight and heads back to Patrick’s. He wants to wait, to hear back from the homeowners and make it official before the reveal. He can keep a secret for one night if it means he gets to sleep in their bed. 

Patrick is reading when he lets himself in, but looks up and smiles hello. David is exhausted from the day. He wordlessly changes into pajamas, steps through his evening routine, and climbs under the covers. Not missing a beat, Patrick weaves his hand through David’s hair. 

“Can you read out loud? Just a bit?” David asks. "I want to hear what you’re hearing."

Patrick does. “The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained. As Nassim Taleb pointed out in _The Black Swan_ , our tendency to construct and believe coherent narratives of the past makes it difficult for us to accept the limits of our forecasting ability. The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future."

_I’ll show you unpredictable_ , is David’s last clear thought before drifting asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Fun Home.  
> The quote is from Thinking Fast and Slow, which seems like a reasonable Patrick book?
> 
> Thank you for reading :) !


End file.
